No giant earthquake rippled across the surface of the earth but I wanted to know what happens next. If you're absolutely sure the world is going to end on a specific day, and it doesn't, what do you do?

Matt Gray's insight:

Evangelist minister and nationally syndicated radio call-in show host Harold Camping read the scriptures, crunched the numbers, and proclaimed that the world would end on May 21, 2011. Untold thousands of his believers quit their jobs, sold their possessions, and spent their money and their remaining days trying to reach out and spread the word to the masses. A year after the would-be Doomsday, one reporter reached out to Camping’s followers to see how they were dealing with the aftermath.

People like Michele Bachmann and Pat Robertson seem to earn for the apocalypse.

Matt Gray's insight:

In premillenialist Christian circles, the belief that God will use the Rapture to save His children from the end times makes for a uniquely cavalier attitude about potentially catastrophic global events. When this attitude finds its way into the political arena, postmillennialists and nonbelievers get nervous. Real nervous.

To understand the powerful appeal of the movement to many of its adherents, a narrative history is first required

Matt Gray's insight:

There are two ways to regard people who fall on the opposing side of the political fence. One is to consider them as fellow countrymen who want the same things as you do, but have different, misguided ideas on how to go about it. The other is to believe that the only real patriots are those who agree with you, while deeming your opponents traitors conspiring to destroy your country and your way of life. This article discusses how fervently much of the American right has come to believe in the latter premise, and the disastrous effects that this is having on the political landscape.

Of all the quote-unquote “crackpot” theories out there, belief in UFO’s is one of the longest-enduring and least out-of-hand-rejected by mainstream thinking. So what is it that differs psychologically between those of us who believe in little green men and those who don’t? One psychologist explains.

With millions of devout worshippers, the Church of the FSM is widely considered a legitimate religion, even by its opponents – mostly fundamentalist Christians, who have accepted that our God has larger balls than theirs.

Matt Gray's insight:

Since its inception in 2005, the Flying Spaghetti Monster has arguably become the most easily-recognized, bumper-sticker-friendly symbol for people who are, to one degree or another, opposed to religion. So should Pastafarians be considered believers themselves, their philosophy granted the same respect by society as those that they satirize? Or are they just being obnoxious, condescending dicks? You decide.

Condemned by the medical establishment, Andrew Wakefield still believes in a link between autism and vaccines.

Matt Gray's insight:

Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 study linking autism to combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccinations in children has been utterly debunked by the medical community, to the point where the article was retracted by its publisher, Wakefield’s medical license was revoked, and he became such a pariah in his native England that he felt compelled to leave the country. And yet, he remains a heroic figure to antivaxxers, a fringe movement of conspiracy theorists who believe, even in the face of a mountain of scientific evidence to the contrary, that childhood vaccines are fraught with unforeseen, dangerous side effects. This profile attempts to shed light on the reasons for his persistent narrow-but-fervent appeal.

How far must the government go in respecting a religion that is demonized by a significant portion of its citizenry? The rubber hits the road and then explodes in a mess of black molten goo when 9/11 pits the true believers of American nationalism against the true believers of Islam.

A filmmaker's father came to believe the extreme right-wing lies of Rush Limbaugh and other conservative media mavens.

Matt Gray's insight:

Have you been longing for a documentary that takes the conceit of Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me and replaces fast food from McDonald’s with right-wing political commentary from Rush Limbaugh? If so, you might want to watch out for Jen Senko’s The Brainwashing of My Dad, a forthcoming documentary about how prolonged exposure to conservative media gradually transformed the filmmaker’s father’s belief system to the point where he became unrecognizable from the person he used to be.

In the interest of understanding these communities and their crazy ideologies a little better, you have to first understand who they align themselves against, and in nearly every case, it's the people who share their convictions.

Matt Gray's insight:

And now for a bit of comic relief: Cracked.com takes a look at what happens when the truest of the true believers of stupid, horrible causes get into ideological pissing contests with each other.

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